Over 2,000 Floridians have been tested for the Zika virus.
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“Once they recover from the illness, there’s no, we don’t believe that they can either get Zika again or that it will ever affect any future pregnancies”, Bhide said.
Roberts said the effort now is on prevention – avoiding Zika-affected areas, keeping the mosquito population down, and avoiding mosquito bites, especially from dusk to dawn.
More than 1,650 cases of Zika have so far been detected in the United States, but the Florida cases would be the first in the U.S. not involving sexual contact or foreign travel.
“This is not just a Florida issue; it’s a national issue”.
CDC has been working with state, local, and territorial health officials to prepare for locally transmitted Zika infection in the United States.
It’s the only part of the state now being tested for potential local transmissions of Zika, Scott said.
In a statement, the agency believes a section of Miami north of downtown is where the transmission of the disease occurred. “Our top priority is to protect pregnant women from the potentially devastating harm caused by Zika”.
“There are a series of factors we’ll have to look at”. Frieden said the CDC would not be issuing travel advisories based on the cases in Florida at this time because there’s now no evidence that the transmission is ongoing and there have been “intense mosquito control efforts” in southern Florida for the past several weeks.
The CDC has not issued a travel limit to the state of Florida. There is no vaccine. While travelling in Latin America the mom had contracted both dengue fever and the Zika virus. But other methods of Zika transmission, such as travel to a stricken country or sex with an infected person, have been ruled out in the four South Florida cases.
The cases are likely the first known occurrence of local mosquito-borne Zika virus transmission in the continental United States. But he said that this advice could change if the number of cases increases substantially. Concerns about Zika and terrorism have prompted some tourists to pay for more expensive travel insurance that allows them to cancel their plans for any reason.
Pregnant women in South Florida and all places where the Aedes aegypti mosquito is present should take steps to prevent mosquito bites, Frieden emphasized.
The health department encourages people to wear insect repellent with DEET during the hours of dusk and dawn and remove standing water because it could attract mosquitoes.
The four cases are in neighboring Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Officials concluded that the virus in that case had been transmitted sexually.
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“What we’re facing right now with this latest unfortunate milestone is a public health emergency”, said Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal.
